


A Son of House Stark

by Eff_Dragonkiller



Series: 2020 Trope Bingo [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Starks (ASoIaF), F/M, Northern Magic, R Plus L Equals J, Rhaegar Targaryen Lives, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:40:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25194826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eff_Dragonkiller/pseuds/Eff_Dragonkiller
Summary: Rhaegar won at the Trident, but the Trident wasn't the whole war and House Stark is going to make sure the King learns that his actions have consequences.
Relationships: Elia Martell & Lyanna Stark & Rhaegar Targaryen, Elia Martell/Rhaegar Targaryen, Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen
Series: 2020 Trope Bingo [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817557
Comments: 4
Kudos: 156
Collections: Just Write! Trope Bingo





	A Son of House Stark

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for Just Write! Trope Bingo: A Reckoning (A Come to Jesus).

Rhaegar trembled. His eyes flicked from the Kingsguard in a pile on the floor to the circle of naked steel surrounding his family, to the body of his father still seated on the Iron Throne, to the somber-looking Lord standing off to the side. He swallowed dryly, “Lord Stark.”

“King Rhaegar.” 

“What- what-,” He swallowed tightly again, and ignored the frantic swearing and pounding feet as his companions caught up to his mad dash through the keep. They weren’t rushing in to put his family in danger, so he didn’t have to pay attention. “What do you want?”

Eddard Stark looked at the pale face of the Queen sitting on a hard-backed chair, the royal children clutched to her chest. He turned back to Rhaegar. “Where is my sister?”

“She’s safe,” Rhaegar took a hasty step forward only to flinch as the naked steel in Lord Stark’s companion’s hands rose. “I would never hurt her. I married her.”

“You married her,” Lord Stark repeated. “You already have a wife.”

“I wouldn’t be the first Targaryen to have two wives.” Rhaegar said, “It hasn’t been done for several generations, but I promise, Lyanna will have all the privileges and respect due to a Queen.”

His second wife’s brother turned to his first, “And I’m to believe you’re perfectly fine with your husband having a second wife? With all the rights, responsibilities, and privileges expected of a Queen?”

“Elia-”

“I am talking to her,” Lord Stark growled, in a fair imitation of his sigil. “Not you, Rhaegar Targaryen.”

Rhaegar could see the embroidery on her fine dress shift as his wife took a deep breath. “I chose Lyanna. Rhaegar came to me with his concerns that we had only two children. I could not bear another, it would surely kill me. So I told him to take a second wife. Someone of good breeding, and a strong disposition. Young and certain to have many fertile years ahead of her. It was why I went to Harrenhal. To pick Rhaegar’s second wife.”

The Northern host was icy in their silence, and if anything the tension had increased with Elia’s tale instead of decreased. It chilled Rhaegar’s blood, the threat had been certain was only a miscommunication was suddenly far more real. 

“Lyanna was lovely. She hated her betrothal to Baratheon,” Rhaegar blurted, “and we both thought that her lively attitude would be good in the Keep. She left a note about our plans for your father in Riverrun. I was sure that once we were wed Lord Rickard could have been appeased. He was an ambitious man and how much higher could you get than the Iron Throne?”

“Except your father was mad and your marriage is illegal,” rumbled one of the unnamed northern lords. 

“Did you ever hear of a note, Ned?” A slight fellow dressed in greens with a sigil of some sort of reptile addressed Eddard Stark. “You didn’t say anything about it.”

“Not that you didn’t have a right to call the banners for this fuck up.” The first lord grumbled.

“No,” Eddard Stark said stoically, “there was no letter.” 

There was a somber kind of silence in the hall, the ghosts of the dead weighing down on their shoulders. Rhaegar gingerly lays his sword on the floor and takes a small step forward. 

“Please, Lord Stark, let my family go.” 

“No.” 

The whole hall stuttered. Rhaegar’s troops had gathered behind him, and the Northern lords had relaxed their stances, anticipating the command to release the royal family. 

“What?” Rhaegar shook his head, “I told you we’re good brothers, why won’t you let my family go?!”

“Because as nice as that story is,” Lord Stark said coldly, “It doesn’t actually change anything. You kidnapped a noblewoman without the consent of her family. You attempted to marry a minor without the presence of her family. You raped her.

“Your father broke faith with his vassals. He murdered my father, my brother, and the heirs of four other noble houses without cause. You killed Robert and have likely killed the rest of House Baratheon and their vassals with Mace Tyrell’s siege, congratulations. But you still haven’t won this war.”

Rhaegar decided as he stared at the ice and steel eyes of his good-brother, that Lord Stark was not a man he ever wanted as his enemy. Even as he listed his grievances against Rhaegar and his house, Eddard’s voice never wavered and the tip of his sword didn’t dip. The crown prince nodded slowly, “Alright, Lord Stark. What are your demands?”

***

Rhaegar stood beside Elia and cuddled his son in his arms, resisting the urge to cry. Eddard Stark was a far more ruthless man than anyone knew. As part of recompense for the fact that Rhaegar had broken both Westerosi law and First Men law, Lyanna’s firstborn would not be raised as a Targaryen. He would be a Stark. 

They would be allowed to send gifts and ravens. Ned had promised to send them updates on his education, but he would never be in line to the throne. Lyanna’s son would grow up in the desolate barren wasteland of the North. He’d never run through the water gardens with his siblings and cousins. He’d never feel the heat of Dragonstone’s volcano through the floor of the keep. He’d never take sword lessons with Arthur. 

It was almost more than he could bear, to watch his beautiful Lyanna just hand over their son with a smile and a kiss. But before long Lord Stark and his forces were giving him bows of grudging respect and leaving for their colder, wilder, lands.

Elia handed the fussy children off to their nurse, and Rhaegar was carefully shutting the doors to the royal family’s private solar. Right before the door shuts, a maid in the hall caught his eye. Dark of hair and eye, she had pale skin and wore her skirt knotted to the side for convenience as she scrubbed the floors, in that eminently functional style he’d never seen on anyone but Lyanna. Nothing she was doing was suspicious, except for the way one eye was on him as he shut the door.

House Martell’s guards, staff, loyalists were easy to spot with their darker skin and Dornish attitudes. House Stark’s wouldn’t be seen unless they wanted to be seen, which was just frightening enough to catch Rhaegar’s breath. They had chosen Lyanna because she was young, healthy, and unlikely to be concerned with the politics of the throne. They’d never even considered the threat of her House. 

Even as the kingdoms eased back towards peace; even after Eddard Stark had negotiated with his sword at Elia’s throat, they hadn’t considered the North a threat to their future. And that was a very stupid move. 

A very stupid move.

“How could you?” Elia shouted as the door shut, “How could you just  _ give _ your child away! Rhaegar’s son will grow up with your brother as the strongest man he knows!”

Lyanna arched a brow and settled onto the settee, “You say that like you didn’t know that going into this.”

The room held its breath. 

“What are you talking about, Lyanna?” Rhaegar asked, “How could we have possibly seen this coming?”

She frowned at the two Southerners and straightened, “The first child of House Stark belongs to House Stark. It’s always a boy. Boys or girls may come after, but the first child born to House Stark is always the Stark of Winterfell. It’s not a secret.”

The King took a seat next to his first wife as his knees went weak, “The dragon has three heads. Your child was supposed to be a girl.”

“The next one could be a girl,” Lyanna said carefully with a frown. “The Maester said I did particularly well with the birth, though he wasn’t pleased with my age. Rhaegar, this child was never going to be a daughter. And he was never going to be yours.”

“What? You think there’s some sort of magic on your family?” Elia grasped his hands in hers, she was trembling. 

“You believe Rhaegar about the prophecy of the Prince that was Promised enough you let another woman in his bed,” the Northern woman pointed out. “Why shouldn’t there be other magics growing in the world?”

“What else was I to do?” Elia pressed her lips together tightly and turned her head so she no longer looked at either of them. “I will die with the next child I carry. I know it in my bones. I will not make it.” 

“Aemon-”

“Jon.” 

Rhaegar looked up at his wife and shivered. She was her brother come again, eyes like ice and a spine of steel. “All Aegons have Aemons.”

“The next boy can be Aemon,” Lyanna softened, leaning forward and the distance between the spouses no longer felt so immense. “And the next girl can be Visenya.” She wrinkled her nose, “I won’t even complain much if you betroth the three of them together. Though, I will insist all of them need to be older than I was when we married. The Maester had much to say about the threat of childbirth in a woman too young.”

Rhaegar breathed deep, “How can you be so certain of the magic in House Stark, but so cavalier about the prophecy?”

“I know who laid the magic on House Stark. I know what it does and why it was done.” She said quietly, “But prophecies? The gods don’t need our help, Rhaegar. They have their plans and their timings and it’s not for men to know. It’s we who need their help. Not the other way around.”

“What does it do?” Elia asked suddenly, “this magic in House Stark? Who laid it and why? What could be so important that it stole our son, Lyanna!?”

“The Wall,” Lyanna said somberly, staring directly at Elia. “So long as a Stark sits in Winterfell the magic of the Wall has an anchor. It keeps the Others at bay. But it requires a Stark, ‘The Stark’, in Winterfell to remain strong. It won’t last forever, but the magic in that ensures House Stark continues will help it last a little longer.” 

The young woman shook her head and laughed a little weakly, “I wouldn’t be surprised if we conceived the very moment of Brandon’s death. The magic always needs a host and House Stark lost many to Aerys’s madness.”

“He’s our son,” Rhaegar said defeated. 

Lyanna stood and placed a kiss upon the crown of his head, “Oh, Rhaegar. You might have fathered that child, but he was always going to be Ned’s son.”

Twenty years later, Rhaegar Targaryen stood on the Westerosi side of the gate through the Wall at Castle Black, staring out at the field of dead. Only moments before, that raging hoard of wildlings and black brothers, and former banners of the Iron Throne had been throwing themselves at the Wall, desperate to get through to kill and destroy. 

Archers equipped with dragonglass arrowheads had been the cause of some of the fall. Their honed expertise had blackened the sky with glass and sheer numbers had taken out white walkers where skill had failed. Jon Stark was walking out of the far woods, dragonsteel sword in hand. The only living thing for miles within the True North.

His other children were arranged on the wall, all seven of them, as prepared as possible for the coming fight for the dawn. Each with their own sworn swords and their years of training, and--nothing. Lyanna had been right.

The Gods hadn’t needed House Targaryen after all.


End file.
